Writing is a Difficult Endeavour

January 28, 2018
Debbie Aruta

Why is Writing so difficult for so many?

If you write, you are a writer. If you soul search you are a poet (or writer ) and if you love words and use them in the most magical way, you are lucky. Writing for so many is so a difficult task. Recently I did NaNoWriMo. I wrote 50,000 words for the month of November. I pushed through it and came out with a pretty interesting book. Writing though has had its difficulties with me.

Words for many come easy. It is the choice what to write that is the difficult part. There are many different genres available to write in. I love reading memoirs right now. There are so much heart and soul in them. They inspire me to write better, to include more details, and to share my personal journey with others. There is fiction, non-fiction, poetry, memoirs, bibliographies, and so many more. Why then is writing still so difficult?

Writing for some comes naturally, but for the rest of us, we struggle. We choose words then delete them. We try to come up with amazing sentences only to be lost in using the same word repeatedly. We argue with our minds in the same way a mathematician would, we need the formula to finalize the words. We use dictionaries, we use thesauruses’, and we read others work to learn from their inventions of stories using words we love. We dream of being one of those great writers, again though we are finding it difficult.

Reading aids in writing. It has been proven time and time again to be true, but if you read only one author over and over, a writer will pick up the language of that writer and copy it in their own writing unintentionally. Read many authors, write many genres, do some writing prompts, spend time having fun with the craft and less time pulling out your hair. Eventually, you will run out of hair. Reading takes us on journeys. It gives us the gift of words in the forms of stories that will be passed on to other readers. Again, we find it difficult to write when reading so much.

Why is writing so hard for so many? Honestly, there are numerous reasons. Some people just cannot write, square peg round hole type of thing, some people do not have the gift, but think writing is easy, some people do not want to spend the time and effort it takes to write, edit, and revise their work. They submit pieces to be published without being polished and fall down. Writing is not an easy job. A writer relies solely on their brain. They may do some research on this or that, but in the end, it is the imagination that places all the words together to make something magical. Writers like Hemingway and Thoreau spent years honing their craft. Many authors were not even famous for their works until their death like Emily Dickinson. Writing is a void that the author has to fill. They need to use words, paragraphs, and pages of them to write. It is not a ten-minute endeavor and it’s brilliant. Writers need to spend time writing over and over.

Writing is a difficult job. Find a writing buddy that you can read each other’s work, help each other improve imagery, and scenes that you write. If you have another writer great, if not and you want one, you need only look online. There are tons of Beta groups that exist for just this reason. There are also readers online that you can plug your stuff into so it will read it back to you and you can catch your errors. If all else fails to find a writing group is of great benefit. Having likeminded folk in your corner will lessen the difficulty of writing, I promise.

So how does the magic of actually writing something decent happen? Write the bones down first. What I mean by that is that you need to just write the story out without editing, without revisions, and without judgment. Writing a free-flowing stream of consciousness works great if you let it happen. If you edit or revise as you go you will lose something. If you stop the flow of work before it is done the chances of you deleting something good rises. Let your brain go!! I know it is hard to do, but honestly, you can add details, names, places, later. If Penelope wants to go meet Louis somewhere, then send her, but if you edit where, when, how, why, who, to it all, as you go, then you get bogged down and cannot finish.

When will you start?

Write what you know. I have written numerous stories, but some element is always me. The house I describe is one I have seen, the places my characters go is somewhere I have been, the issues they have are ones I know from myself or a friend. Sometimes it is purely magically made up, but let us be real, our imaginations only go so far. We end up putting our friends’ quirks into the story or some version of ourselves into it. Writing is difficult enough, but if you leave out all you know, it makes it insurmountable. Why through difficulties on to difficulties. Make writing easier for yourself and sprinkle all you know throughout your words.

Writing is difficult. Why? Because it is a lot of hard and dedicated work. Anything worth doing is worth doing write. ( A little pun there for you ) Writing is filled with spaces empty and waiting for you. The blank page is not to be feared. It is to be made into a story that is in your heart and mind. It was there all the time; now get it onto the page. Write the bones and do not stop until your heart is laid bare on the page in front of you and you have made that beast yours!